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iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone)
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Ruphus
Posts: 3782
Joined: Nov. 18 2010
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 RE: iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone) (in reply to Sr. Martins)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Sr. Martins
Just listened to the tiger, what is that? Sounds bad man.. it's stereo but too "artifacty" and under heavy low pass filtering.. sounds like it barely reaches around 7KHz.
The problem with cheap iRig stuff is...that it really is cheaply made and poorly designed. After a while they come with proper versions (2 or HD) that cost way more.
Either way, I hope this is better than the standard iRig because that was a cool idea but a piece of junk. You can see why you can get it for less than 5 bucks from China.. it has nothing inside lol
The HF seems to have been taken down to reduce said noise. Not filtered out with a steep curve though, as the content is still in there. Don´t know why they went this way, for noise filters can work well if there´s only enough quiet sequence to feed as pattern.
This has been an in-ear system (sound head principle on a real head) and provided the right auditioning condition, very spatial. Taking things for what they are, I think it remarkable what such small gadget can do.
In fact now having been reminded of it and having it here, I am technically curious to try it out at next opportunity when anyone playing guitar in front of me. Clearly, it won´t come close to the quality through my expensive mics, but I am interested to see how much spatiality can be had between the two hands of a player, and how the noise floor can be dealt with.
You are right about most natural capturing through distant microphones, however dismissing some points of application in the same time.
I don´t think anyone would consider miking up a guitar through a miniature microphone for best quality / studio situation.
Things like clip-on or piezos are meant for live situations and the question is how compromises are in comparison to feedback and limitations of movement with fixed microphones. As well as how sound advantage of fixed microphones retains through a given PA and room.
From what I can see, the overall gist depends from the individual situation.
Further, I don´t know why you emphasize condenser technology. Dynamic mics can work just as well, and are preferrably used on stage for a reason. Their cheaper being doesn´t mean that they are inferiour.
Ruphus
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Date Nov. 17 2015 11:17:50
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Ricardo
Posts: 14801
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone) (in reply to Ruphus)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Ruphus
I see now the application you are referring to. For recording no use of clip-on.
Beware however with the assumptions on mic tech condensor / dynamic mics. When suit they are being preferred over condensors where folks have access to finest gear. Sometimes even for vocals.
And in the low budget range you can count with better sound from humble dynamics than from cheap condensors. Specially in digital times, where overcoming brittle highs is common aim.
I for certain, had I only known / not followed the amateur and sales clerk´s blurb back then, should had skipped on buying miserable condensors initially aquired and settled on plain SM57s into good preamps (D.A.V. for very good quality on small budget. Beats by far anything even just close in price).
Today there are smooth condensors availble in prosumer range, but you need to know which, no matter SD or LD. Unless sure about it, just stick to good old and fairly inexpensive SM57 /58, and you´re good to go.
Ruphus
For many years already, I have found the most versatile mic to be the sure Beta 87A. For live sound we first notice, if you know how to use it interms of your proximity, for vocals it is simply unmatched. Trying out on guitar it's surprising....my first thought after so many different mic types and situations was "dang, THAT is the sound I have been looking for!!!". Again, if you know how to deal with it on stage the thing never feeds back no matter how hot we make it or where we have monitors placed, and the sound is crystal clear like reccordings. Works just fine in recording studio as well.
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CD's and transcriptions available here:
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Date Nov. 22 2015 19:21:38
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rombsix
Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone) (in reply to rombsix)
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Hey friends - I received this product today, and either I'm completely stupid, or the unit I got was a dud because it was completely defective right out of the box.  I tried doing everything I could (phone, iPod, multiple computers), and nothing worked. I think the microphone is just dead for some reason.
I mean, you know more than I do - is this (based on the description of it having a TRRS connector) a special kind of microphone where if you plug it into the normal 3.5 mm microphone jack of a Windows PC and try to listen to the device or record through it then NOTHING will happen?
How does it make sense for this to be connected to a smartphone? Smartphones have just one jack to connect into, and it shows the "headphones" icon next to it. This iRig Acoustic is a microphone, so how does it make sense to connect a microphone into a headphones connector of a smartphone? Isn't the jack of the phone only an output? Or is that the whole secret of TRRS, meaning it is both input AND output at the same time (which is how this iRig Acoustic works)?
In any case - I contacted customer support to see what the story is... 
_____________________________
Ramzi
http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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Date Nov. 24 2015 1:37:45
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rombsix
Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone) (in reply to Leñador)
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I'm thinking more and more that there's something wrong with the particular unit that I got... I tried the headphones (also TRRS) for my Samsung Galaxy S6 and they worked as a microphone when plugged into the 3.5 mm mic jack of my PC. The app I downloaded which is advertised for Android with this iRig Acoustic does not seem to be working well. I think this device is meant for Apple products, and all I have is a second generation iPod Touch (for Doctor Compas) which is not supported (too old of a device) with the apps suggested on the IK website.
In the process of trying to figure all of this out, I realized that I can use AmpliTube 4.0, the Asio4All driver, and my USB MXL .009 microphone (which has an output jack for zero latency monitoring and therefore shows up as "speakers" also on my PC) to get some awesome live reverb effects (or whatever other effects I can get through AmpliTube) being listened to via plugging my headphones directly into the MXL .009 USB microphone. Like Sr. Martins was saying, it looks like the USB mic has a pretty decent "audio interface" within, and it far surpasses the "direct sound" built-in sound card that my PC has. It's not a totally sucky setup. I was hoping to get some neat results with the iRig Acoustic, but it looks like the most important one was available to me all along through my USB mic.
Still, I want to try to replace the iRig Acoustic to see if indeed my unit was dead, or if I just didn't figure out how to use it.
Either I need an iPad, or the marketing of this product makes it appear MUCH easier to use than it actually is.
Hopefully some updates later...
_____________________________
Ramzi
http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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Date Nov. 24 2015 5:09:28
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rombsix
Posts: 7808
Joined: Jan. 11 2006
From: Beirut, Lebanon
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RE: iRig Acoustic (clip-on microphone) (in reply to rombsix)
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OK - so I got this to work. Yay! It worked by connecting it through my Galaxy S6. There was one stupid / tricky step which I was not doing that finally got it to work. For some weird reason, you don't hear the output of the mic unless you change the active display on the phone from the actual Amplitube app to the Samsung Professional Audio (SPA) screen. It's like if you're watching a YouTube video then you change to looking at your messages, you would expect the YouTube sound to keep playing in the background even though you're now looking at text messages, but for my case I actually lose the YouTube sound. I figured this might be the same issue, and indeed it was! So it's tedious because you have to set the effects through the Amplitube app then you have to go to the SPA screen to hear the actual output, so you can't really fiddle around with the effects directly (due to having to switch back and forth between the two screens). The demo videos did NOT show that to be needed, so I'm guessing either this gizmo is still not working well with Android, or my iRig or Galaxy S6 is screwed up.
The other thing is that there is a MINOR delay in the live sound so if you do a golpe on the wood with the strings muted, you will hear a TINY gap between the sound of the golpe on the actual sound board, and the sound of the golpe through the headphones. It is really NOT a huge issue - totally manageable - but it is not as "perfect" as I hoped it would be (i.e. it's NOT zero latency). SPA allows you to decrease the latency, but that requires more "CPU" usage, and I think my phone crashes because the sound becomes super distorted and unusable if I change to the low-latency (high CPU usage) setting (instead of the "moderate latency (Recommended)" setting). And actually, the low-latency setting doesn't really seem to help with the latency, but rather it sort of makes it worse (along with the distorted sound). But hey - if you're looking for a delay + distortion metal effect, then you're set!
But seriously - regarding the QUALITY of the audio and the live effects: I was really impressed. It doesn't sound as good as it does in the demo videos on YouTube, but for the purpose of a $49 gizmo used via a phone app, I think it is super awesome actually. I set a delay effect and reviewed Ewan Dobson's "Time 2" piece that I've covered in the past (tough to play by the way! I'm impressed I played it cleanly in the past!), and it really sounded awesome! I also used just regular reverb through an amp effect, and I played some granaina / taranta, and it sounded really good, seriously! It perhaps sounded just as good or even better than my $350 MXL USB .009 microphone actually! It was just a bit more "dirty" sounding (i.e. some mild hiss, perhaps from my room with the PC fan going or the A/C fan going), but that was sort of remediable through fiddling around with the input volume and output volume. I didn't play with it enough to get the optimal setting for best sound and least noise, but I am still pretty amazed with this thing. It is really NOT as crappy as I was expecting it would be based on Sr. Martin's comments. I got in contact with the customer support people and they replied within 8 hours via email and they are the ones that helped me figure out how to get it to work. I am going to contact them about potentially optimizing the results I've achieved so far, then I'll look into an app to record something and I'll post it here so you can check it out...
Olé!
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Ramzi
http://www.youtube.com/rombsix
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Date Nov. 24 2015 23:58:39
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